


The Ups and Downs

by splendidly_sarah



Category: Marvel
Genre: Reflecting on life, work out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 00:32:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2448752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splendidly_sarah/pseuds/splendidly_sarah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve works out, he likes to think. Today is no different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ups and Downs

It's warm. It's the first thing his mind truly registers as he brings himself to the ground, hands dry and cracking with the chalk he'd covered them in. It's dirty, too, but the floor has never been a place he'd quantified as something remotely clean--especially not in a gym used by SHIELD agents. If he looks closely, he can see the white chalk-dust imprint of a SHIELD-issued shoe against the dark grey. But it's okay. He's not here for appearances, is far over trying to impress people. He's here for himself, hair sticky with perspiration he doesn't care to wipe away. This is a man who doesn't need to work out, but craves the burn in his lungs he thought he'd lost, a man who feels so lost to normality that he cannot bear the idea of quitting this regime. The push-ups make him feel alive. They bring back a past that at times feels so tangible he can touch it. 

Down.

 _A product of Mrs. O'Leary and her damn cow, he'd say. Steve was young, but the idea of the words resonated well with him. He was a mistake--not his being born, no, but his physicality. He was so thin and fragile. Feminine, his father once called it. Too much like his mother, he'd say at another time. Despite his love for the woman, Steve grew to resent that statement._  

Up.

_He was born beside a man with cholera in a hospital with too many people with the few untrained nurses they had on site. His father was making acquaintances with a bottle and back alley women at the time of his actual birth. A sick bay was all they could offer to an Irish immigrant woman with no money, no name. Sarah Rogers was the perfect mix of fighter and lover, however, and like Mary, found herself comfortable in her own sort of stable with her small treasure, though Steve was anointed with the sweat and tears of the slums more so than frankincense._

Down.

_School had never been his forte. With no physical ability, there was a time when, due to comments from his father, he wondered what his use was to the world. So he'd draw a picture of a life he dreamed of in a land far away. His mother would fawn over it, and paste it in a large book she kept hidden away. When winter came and with the heavy snows, his family fought the cold away with small pieces of wood collected from bins outside of restaurants. That was until his father found a large, dry book bountiful with paper that kept the Rogers family warm through the winter, though it did little for the bitterness that went from his skin into his heart._

Up.

_His mother would hum little things in a language he knew she hardly understood. Yet, despite his ignorance, it was the greatest comfort. He'd come down with a fever, and sang as she dabbed at the clamminess with a rag. Come away from him, he'd hear that awful man say. She wouldn't, and it was the first time he saw his father lay his hands on her, smelling of sharp tobacco and woman's perfume. It was habit, after this, and no matter how Steve cried, Sarah wouldn't stay down. And she told his so--never back down. Never give up. He wouldn't, and he'd remember that, though she was hurt, she never cry. Soldiers never, ever, cry. She'd whisper to him. Soldiers are the strongest of people, the bravest. And they mustn't ever cry._

Down.

_Steve couldn't remember crying once he hit nine, because soldier's just didn't cry. He remembers standing over a deep hole, in it a wooden box with a single red rose, the woman who he'd never seen shed a tear fighting them back. Joseph Rogers may have not been a good man, but he was loved truly and unconditionally by a good, honest woman._

Up.

_She was coughing, and his gran would shoo him out of the room. No need for the two of them being sick. So after a week, when his gran finally told him to go in, he did gladly, not to find that she was better in any way. Be strong, my good boy. She'd tell him. Be strong, and be a good man. Remember to love, my son. Love drawing and running--but not too much. I don't want you to sicken yourself running. He'd roll his eyes and she'd smile. She never smiled when he did that. You're going to be fine. He'd finally say, holding her too-cold hand. Of course, she'd reply. He nod, tears he'd kept at bay for seven years finally daring to make their show. We're going to go to Paris, you and I. Get a studio so I can draw. We'll be rich, ma! I hear in Paris that it's easy to get food--as much as you can eat all day. Can you dream it, ma? Ma? He'd ask, and she'd nod, no smile left._

Down.

 _He was the only one at his mother's funeral except for Bucky. There wasn't enough money to pay a priest, so he stood at the edge of a grave his friend had made because he couldn't. Steve read everything she'd liked in the Bible--all of the happy things about streets of gold and crystal seas. A mansion, and constant singing. He read it all, knowing that, if anyone in the world ever went to heaven, it would be her. At his gran's funeral the next month, he said little, feeling a numbness that stretched into his bones. Nothing. Nothing but the_   _cold._

Up.

_With seventeen came the idea to chase girls with Bucky. Well, he acted more as Bucky's sidekick rather than the main show, a role he gladly took. He'd never had a girlfriend, but found himself in love with one he thought he'd marry if the time ever came right. But before he was eighteen she was married and had babies of her own, and therein ended his initial interest. Not that he wasn't, simply that he didn't care. There were more important things to do. And in 1941, when he turned eighteen, that important thing was to fight back--to win a war that didn't start until the next year._

Down.

_The 107th, Steve, just like your pop. Is that what you do in Indiana, Steve would ask. Do everything your dad did? Bucky would punch him lightly in the arm, and after a few months of his being gone, he missed that familiar stinging. But he got his chance--something he never planned on. He had a good spirit, and despite his anger, he assumed that was right. He'd never killed a man, never really had the desire to. He just wanted to do what was right...and for once, someone paid attention to him for that._

Up.

_It's like clockwork that he sees her. He runs, he works, he's evaluated bit by bit, and she's always looming in the distance. It's fair to say that Steve falls in love with the idea of her before he gets to know her...that's when he truly falls in love for the first time. And after a procedure that changes his life, he finds that he still loves her all the same, if not a bit more...because for once...maybe she loves him, too._

Down.

_He writes her a million letters, it feels, and in one moment he wishes he could throw them in an envelope and seal them with a love more tangible than his saying they should dance. Though it's like they speak their own language, it's not enough--not over the intercom of a sinking ship. Is it okay to loosen your lips when the ship is half sunk? He wonders and thinks not, his final words ending with a fizzle._

Up.

_The ice is nothing compared to the here and now. Not that it's overly painful or complex, it's just so different. His home is a barber shop that costs so much that, at first, he wonders how someone can afford a shave. His school is a park now, and he remembers his first fight in the location of a swing set near a duck pond that was once the most glorious jumping puddle after a big rain. As time passes, the here and now isn't so bad. While many people who he remembers from school say he bears a striking resemblance to his grandfather, it's not so awful. Sure, aliens and gods and the near-constant death take their toll, but for once, the greater good seems to cast a shadow on the bad._

Down.

_At times, like now, it's hard to push back up, to take control of a situation. Hell, he finds that after not sleeping for four days straight, it's difficult to even make his way to the gym. But he doesn't give up. He remembers the difficulty and the strife. He remembers the pain and suffering, the bright spots of love and hope._

_And he comes up a better man._

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story when I first started by blog in 2012...so please understand that this is an old work.


End file.
